any ideas

my daughter is going to kindergarten in ohio. she is an open-enrollment student at a nearby school district.(it is a public school). after screening and stuff, she received an acceptance letter from the school 2 days ago. the weird part of the letter was the way superintendent ended the letter.

"Thank you and God Bless"

don't know how i feel about the school now. my wife says we should let it pass and pick our fights as it is just what they do around here and he probably never even thought twice about it, but my problem is now escalating because the superintendent's wife is one of the three kindergarten teachers and i heard from other parents that she sometimes does another prayer after the pledge of allegiance in her class.

1) Should i call the superintendent now and talk to him about this situation or should i wait till we go for the registration in august?

2) Should we be straight forward and let his wife now if we get her as my daughter's teacher?

i heard the other 2 teachers are not like that.

3) Is it okay to ask for another teacher if we do get her?

4) Will that cause complications for my daughter in the school?

5) or Am i just thinking way too much into this?

just to be fair my daughter's pre-school teacher at the same school was very accommodating to our views. she had a little prayer thing which they did before snacks but she changed it when we told her politely about how we felt and that we did not believe in god.

Replies to This Discussion

If the rumors are true and if you don't want your kid hearing prayers, absolutely ask to not have your child placed with that teacher. The woman should be fired for what she is doing since it's against the law, but chances are she wont be thanks to her being the wife of the superintendent.

I think just wait until you find out if your daughter has that teacher and if she does ask to change teachers and you don't have to necessarily explain why even but if you want to you can explain it's the prayer thing. Ithink that's the most reasonable thing to do and if she changes teachers before ever starting school it won't cause any problems for your daughter,I'm sure. Usually schools are pretty much slaves to whatever parents want and most teachers wouldn't treat the children any differently even if they have annoyed or angry feelings toward the parents... LOL. That's from my experience. I'm not sure though. I'm not sure how understanding this woman would be, maybe she'd just stop saying the prayers if you asked her to, but if she didn't it'd be bad so idk my guess is that the safest bet is just to ask to switch teachers.

I would ask if the rumor of the prayer is true. Before I would allow my child to begin to bond with those particular students, I would know what to expect and put her on neutral ground. If you start a fight later you'll have the teachers talking, your child being pulled away from kids she may have bonded with and you'll be the bad person. If you tackle it as between you and the Sup, then it's just the two of you and an understanding may be reached for all of the days your child falls under the Sup.

I don't think that I would challenge the God Bless in the letter. Not a fan, but at some point the water has to roll of the back. Good luck with your decisions!

thanks a lot for all your insight guys......really appreciate it....just one more question....
there is a 33% chance she might get that teacher, if we assume she does, from your experience, do u think,if we ask for replacement or change of class, the other teachers won't hold that against my daughter?
i only did my graduate classes in US so have no idea regarding high school stuff......thanks a lot again.

There really shouldn't be any reason for them to have anything against your child. Something like this in high school might get a little out of hand, but you are talking kindergarten. What kind of teacher will seriously hold a grudge against a child in kindergarten? Worst comes to worst your parent teacher conferences and open house events might be a little awkward because they don't like you, but in no way should that effect your child in any way. If it does, you get those teachers fired, they don't deserve to be around children.

we did have a meeting with the school principal about 6 weeks ago and finally got a reply back from her. in the discussion we politely asked her to either switch my daughter to a different teacher or ask the current religious teacher to refrain from praying at least this year, when our daughter is in her class. The principal assured us that she would make the decision in the best interest of the student, and her final decision is to change my daughter's class to a different teacher. We are happy with the result and thankful to you all for your input.

yes the prayer rumors were true. based on our discussion with the principal (i don't know for sure but here i am speculating) the teacher in question might not want to stop what prayer she does and since we did give them the option of switching classes, the principal took the easy way out. we did however explain to the principal in detail that we had nothing against the teacher in question but just wanted her to refrain from prayer while our daughter was in her class.

Sounds like the school from hell. A superintendent sets the agenda for a school; if there are prayers being said, you can bet your sweet bippy he supports them. If you can find a school that is not inculcated with nuts, I would send my child there. It is hard to reverse the damage a Christian can do to a young, fertile mind.

Sometimes methinks atheists overreact or you're joking? ... I mean I'm English and brought up in a C of E state school ... which means assembly/hymns in the morning (the old days) and all 'Bromley Reform' (that's Jewish 'nice' ppl who don't really believe or maybe they do ... I like em just the shul/G-d bit is a conflict plus the 'mamza' question which is terrible [US: shul =temple]') .. then you got to work - you know, maths, English, stuff like that.

That was old day assimilation. Darwin was born near where I live now. We had science labs n all. It was 'progressive' in that we no longer had 'Religious Instruction' but 'Religious Education' where we learned about various religions (taught v badly) - it was mostly thought of as a waste of time by all attendees.

Lets give some respect to Xtians and not be too Nazi about this - if the odd one wants to pray ... it's not harmful in my experience ... and do you really want to outlaw Scientology? Well certainly no more charitable status for any of em. I'm not talking Catholic (I don't think Darwin's wife was Catholic was she?) ... that's another story ... something to do with Good King Henry - am I right?